Jun Tsuji - Censorship and Vagabondage

Censorship and Vagabondage

Tsuji wrote during the 1920s, a dangerous period in Japanese history for controversial writers, during which he experienced the wages of censorship through police harassment. He also experienced this vicariously through the persecution of close associates such as his former wife, anarcho-feminist Ito Noe, who was murdered in the Amakasu Incident.

For being a controversial writer in the heart of Tokyo's radical art scene, Tsuji himself believed that had he been living instead as a peasant in the Soviet Union at the time, he would surely be have been shot to death. This political climate exacerbated Tsuji's urges towards vagabondage:

That I, without an objective and completely light-heartedly, walk-- having unawares become absorbed in the winds and water and grass among other things in nature, it is not unusual for my existence to become suspicious. And because my existence is in such a suspicious position, I am flying off from this society and vanishing. In such circumstances there is a possibility of feeling the “vagabond's religious ecstasy”. At such times one may become utterly lost in their experience. Thus, when I set myself to putting something down on paper, at last feelings from those moments drift into my mind, and I am compelled to make these feelings known. When I am driven to write, it is already too late and I become an utterly shackled captive... Thus, after writing and garrulously chatting I often feel I have surely done something tremendously pointless. This results in me lacking the spirit to write. Nevertheless, thus far and from here on out, I have written, will continue to write. My impulse to wander comes about from the uneasiness of staying still... and this uneasiness is for me quite dreadful.

— Tsuji Jun, Vagabond Romance. July 29, 1921